Question for Christians Only - Where's Emmanuel?

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Interpreting prophecies or any other scripture in a non-literal sense is an invitation to spin it into anything you want to spin it into, especially if you are not happy with what it says. That alone is the reason for so many different interpretations of scripture.

One might argue that some scriptures are obviously not intended to be taken literally. And that is true to some extent. But agreeing to allow the picking and choosing of which scriptures to take literally and which not to take literally is basically giving license to spin scripture and then allow flim-flam arguments to support it. I insist on literal interpretations unless it is fairly obvious the writer of the scripture didn't intend one.

Ok, I'll give you that looking at only that one prophecy with no knowledge of christianity you would think it ment the messiah was going to be called Immanuel. I would like to point out we are looking at this from the modern west perspective. Good job one verse isn't why I think Christ was the messiah hey.

No! That's not the reason. The reason is as I stated before. If we use your argument we could claim anyone to be the person the prophet was referring to. If we use the literal interpretation, the scripture only applies to the person actually called "Immanuel." The question you should ask yourself is this, "Did the prophet mean to make this prophecy apply to anyone or did he intend that it should only apply to one person, specifically the person called Immanuel? If it can be made to apply to anyone, it's worthless as a prophecy.

Of course it is on its own, I just assumed we were considering other things at the same time too.

Each prophecy must be evaluated on its own merit. If time and opportunity permits, I will be happy to critique any prophecy you wish to present and show you why it has problems being a prophecy of Jesus.

Right now I cant be bothered to go find every prophecy cos its late here. You can google it or I'll find them tomorrow if you want.

Yes, you should consider all evidence, and do so with an open mind. If the evidence against a belief is a well-substantiated fact or sound, you should not try to nullify that evidence with apologetic flim-flam. Here is where integrity figures into the process. Anyone can construct plausible arguments in an attempt to nullify valid evidence they don't like. But in doing so, is it their agenda to pursue the truth or defend a lie?

Likewise, just as some people use flim-flam arguments to defend lies, some will use flim-flam arguments to tear down the truth. They don't have integrity either. So, sorting out who is honest and who is unscrupulous is not easy. That is why you cannot depend on others to feed you the truth. You have to do a lot of work yourself. And you have to be very thorough and objective in your search for evidence or else you'll find you're your own worst enemy.

And no, you cannot tear down all of science. In fact, you can't tear down any science. Scientific theories are well-substantiated through rigorous standards of testing, peer review and validation. All the flim-flam in the world, whether it sounds plausible or not, cannot fool the scientific community.

The question then becomes, is the evidence against my belief well-substantiated and not 'flim-flam' itself. I call your reason on Immanuel 'flim-flam' in light of what I know of Jesus other than that one verse. I give good reason to believe in Jesus/God sometimes and atheists try to dismiss it with 'flim-flam' reasoning. Its not as if you can try to apply it to only me with each side of the line sees the other side that way. I know truth takes alot of work yourself, my beliefs now are getting further from the church I am brought up in.

One should not disregard their beliefs simply because of abstract reasoning. Only well-substantiated evidence and sound reasoning should be capable of dislodging a belief. Equally important, one should not resist sound reasoning and well-substantiated evidence no matter how much they love their beliefs.

I am not asking you to abandon any belief, I am asking you to think critically with an open mind about your beliefs. I am asking you to stop trying to prop them up when it is clear they are riddled with problems.

That is fair enough since partly the reason I am here is to open my mind up (which it is fairly already). You may disagree since I have a different belief to you which you think is wrong. The thing is I dont see problems though, you do. Not all things that look like problems really are so have to reasoned through. If we didn't do that we would lose all our beliefs in anything the first time a 'problem' came up.